Asked about the circumstances of Stephen Hester’s departure from RBS, Sajid Javid, the junior Treasury minister, told the Commons that George Osborne had “not been directly involved”. Not directly. Curious way of putting it. Does that mean Mr Osborne was involved indirectly? And if so, what would indirect involvement entail?

Perhaps, for example, bribing a fortune teller to appear at the fête in Mr Hester’s village and cry, “Ah! Mr Hester! I see a blissful future ahead of you, filled with love, fulfilment and cloudless good health, your wife growing more beautiful by the year, your children enjoying wonderful marriages and glorious careers, your adoring grandchildren bringing you joy long into your dotage! But only if you resign your position as Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive at a time convenient to the Chancellor.

“Otherwise you’ll die penniless, unloved and alone in a stinking hovel, your skin pulsing with boils, your armpit hair jumping with fleas, and your knees knocking with the cold because you grew so hungry you were reduced to eating your last pair of trousers.”

Not that Mr Osborne would ever contemplate anything so underhand, of course. He is a gentleman of integrity. He is also extremely busy, which must be why he wasn’t present when the Speaker granted an Urgent Question about Mr Hester’s departure, and what it meant for the tax-payer-owned bank.

Happily Mr Javid was on hand to explain everything. Mr Hester’s departure had been “a decision for RBS and its board”, made “jointly” with Mr Hester. Moreover, there was no truth to allegations that Mr Osborne was determined to sell off RBS by the end of 2014 to give the Tories a pre-election boost; in fact, insisted Mr Javid, “we have no fixed timetable, and that includes the general election”.

Labour MPs scoffed at this, but Mr Javid’s face remained straight. Like his boss, he seems most at home when winding up the Opposition. Also like his boss, he has something gleefully serpentine about him. At any moment you expect to see a long thin tongue flicker from his mouth, his hood flaring, his fangs glittering. His voice has something cold, pinched and cruel about it, and carries an ever-present twang of irony. He’d be terrific voicing a villainous cobra in a Disney cartoon.

It wasn’t long before Labour’s Chris Leslie, who had tabled the Urgent Question, felt Mr Javid’s fangs in his ankle. “The only reason we are here discussing this topic today,” hissed the serpent triumphantly, “is the previous Government’s failure to regulate our banking system!”

The Commons paused to recall the Tory party’s tireless campaigning, between 1997 and the eve of the financial crisis, for tighter banking regulation. “Heavy-touch regulation! That’s what we need!” had been Mr Osborne’s cry in Opposition. “Rules as tight as a straitjacket, please, or the whole financial shebang’s bound to go pear-shaped, you mark my words!”